An Obsessive-Compulsive's Guide to the 'Friday the 13th' Movies

(All this month we'll be bringing back some of our favorite Halloween-themed posts, as well as digging up some brand new stuff from beyond the grave. Enjoy!)

By: Eric D. Snider

A few years ago, I decided a good way to spend my time would be to watch all 10 Friday the 13th movies and keep track of the statistics: how many kills, how many heroines taking showers, how many people falling down while trying to run away, etc. I was fond of the Scream series' deconstruction of the slasher genre, and it occurred to me that the Friday the 13th films -- most of which I had not seen at that point -- were probably the source of some of the oldest, ripest clichés.

So I watched them, I took notes, I wrote snarky reviews. And I also compiled the data. Now, years later, in conjunction with Cinematical's October festivities, that data is finally useful! My life's work has not been in vain!

The 10 Friday the 13th movies (I did not include Freddy vs. Jason) are fairly bursting at the seams with death and mayhem. I counted 153 deaths over the course of the decalogue, and that's out of 246 speaking parts. In other words, 62 percent of the series' cast is murdered at some point. Given that the 10 movies total 909 minutes in length (including credits), that's an average of one death every 5.94 minutes.

Parts 5, 9, and 10 have the most murders with 20 each. Parts 1 and 2, on the other hand, are almost puritan in their restraint, having just nine murders apiece.

Part 7 is noteworthy because it has 15 murders and only 21 credited actors. That means if you were in that movie, there was a 71 percent chance you would be killed.